Biopolitics and the “Boundless People”

Abstract

Abstract This chapter develops a genealogical lens for viewing Aristotle’s thinking about the nature of the human multitude. Its primary claim is that Aristotle’s sense of the sharing of the perception of justice as the common deed that comprises human political life is informed by an Iliadic model, the harnessing of aisthēsis and logos for the pursuit of a common task. As with Aristotle, the root of this model is found in the very conception of living as it is accomplished by a variety of animal kinds. In both cases, living emerges as a collectively pursued enterprise requiring fluid combinations of coalescences and diffusions of force and capacity. The model of political power that emerges from the animal imagery for human collective action employed throughout the Iliad illuminates the conception of zōē that undergirds Aristotle’s understanding of the formation of people and complicates our assessment of the “biopolitical” character of Aristotle’s thought.